Several Branches Short of a Full Tree

A Genealogy & Family Tree Blog

Stacks Image 5
Garrison Smith Welch

Whether you descend from one of these surnames or are just interested in genealogical adventures and stories of discovery, welcome!

What Goes Around...


PERHAPS WHAT DRIVES ME TO STUDY MY GENEALOGY are the yarns that are unraveled, as I discover my family story. Sometimes when I get to the end of a ball of yarn, I find that its end is somehow tied to the beginning. One such coincidence threw me for a loop!

When I discovered a road in Ohio that had been named after my paternal 3x great-grandfather, I was astounded. Like my father and grandfather, I was born in Ohio, and none of us had known about this road, where our forefathers had worked and played.

I was a baby when my family moved to Michigan, where my father got a new job. Only since researching my family history did I learn that my maternal great-great-grandfather, George Perry, had married in a church one block away from the house where I was raised! Not even my mother knew. Although she was born in that county, she never realized that her ancestors lived in the very same town. She wasn’t even certain what her paternal grandparents’ names were, so my initial genealogical research was stumped until she sent me a valuable document, written by her late uncle: a short family history that she’d found.

According to that document, my great-grandfather, William Perry, and his father, George Ricard Perry, grew up in Algoma Township (Rockford, MI), where I went from Kindergaten to high school. I wondered if I had played in the same woods, the same river, the same meadows they had. Did I shop in the same General Store and walk down the same streets as they? Most likely!

It’s amazing how close I was, without realizing it, to branches of my family tree and heritage—the things I’d bemoaned not knowing growing up. I have since lived in Illinois, Florida and now Tennessee, and I am eager to return “home” to greet their ghosts and give them my regards.